Catching Fire
by clynd
Summary: When Sugar can't figure out how to get Brittany out of her rut, she calls Santana and fills her in on her everything that's been happening in Lima while she's been gone. Santana heads home to confront the newlyweds.


Berry and Quinn have gone off to have lunch somewhere and left you here, bored, sitting on the couch beside Kurt and watching TV. He's flicking through a magazine, rambling on about his time at and working with some famous lady that you don't really care to learn the name of, and you want to book the next flight out of this place just to escape his voice.

New York has been fun, and somehow this apartment that they have is huge, but you still don't feel right here. You thought you'd drop college, take a quick trip to New York, fall in love with the place, 'discover yourself' as Quinn so poetically put it, and then leave Lima and Louisville behind forever. But you haven't. You enjoyed walking through the streets with Quinn and Rachel, and you even enjoyed being sneaked into NYADA and given the 'top secret tour'.

Although Rachel had acted like you were on a legit secret mission. The duck and running kind of put a damper on the whole thing.

You did meet Brody, though. The guy that Finn had decided you wanted to hear all about during the last time you visited McKinley for Thanksgiving. He was nice enough. He didn't have that pained and confused look that Finn seems to carry everywhere, although there was a slimy smile in its place. Quinn sized him up as if it was her duty to approve him, and Rachel kind of looked at Quinn like it was her duty too, so when she and Brody started talking easily and laughing along to some dumb joke that he had pulled, Rachel had sighed and joined in.

You had folded your arms, rolled your eyes, and looked around the surprisingly large room.

Even this didn't feel right. You loved singing, and you had kind of really taken to the acting thing during West Side Story, so this place that housed people obsessed with both really should have been perfect. The walls were full of pictures, of accolades, of people that 'made it' and a few that didn't. You even recognise some faces, although that is all thanks to Rachel Berry and the 'think of the possibilities!' pep talks she used to give to you all during glee club. You love the feel of the place. Yes, a lot of the people here are just even more exaggerated versions of the original Hummelberry, but even those people you manage to ignore.

Or just sneer at and then walk past.

And, okay, maybe you yelled 'Christ, he's wearing a feather boa!' at a guy walking through the halls before being pulled out of his line of sight by Rachel.

But he _was_ wearing a feather boa. And it was pink. And glittery.

But, alas, New York hadn't given you the feeling that you hoped it would. It had given you clarity, because now you knew where you wanted to be, and you knew that giving up on college was definitely the best thing for you to have done. It had shown you that you wanted to live in a city, and you wanted to sing, maybe act a little, do the whole 'I'm working in this diner between auditions' thing.

Maybe you wanted New York, maybe you didn't, but you wanted _this_.

Even if the fuzzies that you felt when you came here with the glee club a few years back hadn't returned.

You really wish they would.

"How is Brittany?"

The question pulls you out of your thoughts, and when your eyes focus back on the TV you realise that an entirely different show has started. You look to your right, at Kurt, who still has the magazine open in front of him but is glancing at you with a raised brow.

It takes you a moment until you shrug, eyes returning to the screen. You hate this question. You don't know how Brittany is any more, because you haven't spoken in weeks. "Good, I guess."  
Kurt nods, returning back to his magazine, but you can tell that he isn't finished. "Did she go away for Christmas this year?"

"No," you reply, shaking your head. You knew her plans for Christmas because the weird silence hadn't started by the time she was making her plans. Her family sometimes went away, but this year they were having all of their relatives over and they were all staying for the night. Which meant a family member on pretty much every surface, a few on the floor, and at least four in Brittany's bed. You were invited one year. She'd used the fact that her little cousins were sharing her bed as an excuse to cuddle you. You hated the fact that she needed an excuse, but you also hated the fact that you loved cuddling her so much, so you just closed your eyes and shuffled farther into her body. "They're having a big family Christmas. They do it every few years."

Kurt smiles at that, licking his finger before flipping the page. " That all sounds very 'Brittany'."

"It all sounds very 'Pierce'," you reply back, chuckling before you really realise. You get that fuzziness then. When you're talking about Brittany, forgetting for a moment that she isn't yours, that she isn't here and you aren't sat in a New York apartment with one of your friends, waiting for her to arrive home.

The contented fuzziness. The excited, contented, everything fuzziness.

It takes you a moment to remember what happened, then the fuzziness goes away.

"What about Blaine?" you ask, turning to him with much less of a smile now. "Did he go away? Or did he jump on Santa's lap and give him a ride too?"

His face is shocked, then hurt, then confused, and you pull your bottom lip between your teeth and inwardly scold yourself. You don't know if you became defensive because of Brittany or because of the cheating. It's kinda hypocritical for you to ever really be angry at Blaine for cheating, because you and Brittany were having sex throughout pretty much every relationship the two of you ever had, but this was different. You know what it's like to wait and wait for something. Kurt waited for someone to love him back. He crushed on pretty much every straight boy in the school, and then he met Blaine, and he finally had a someone.

You don't cheat when you have your someone.

You would have never, ever cheated on her. And she would never, ever have cheated on you. Because it meant more than the other guys; the random guys that just wanted to take you to Breadsticks and then get in your pants in the back seat of their car.

You don't cheat on your someone.

"Sorry," you apologise when Kurt looks back at the magazine. "I shouldn't have said that. My brain doesn't really think things through until it's already coming out of my mouth, and then it's too late."

He smiles, looking at you with a 'you really don't have to tell me that' look, because he really has known you for long enough to know that you can't hold your words back, even if you try.

Even if you really, _really_ try.

"He came here," he says after a moment, his voice low and sad. You just wait for him to continue, but he doesn't, he just shrugs and looks over at you with sad eyes.

"Are you two..." you ask, and you're surprised that you genuinely want to know. You are actually curious about Kurt's life. Kurt's love life, of all things.

You smile a little. This feels like friendship.

He shakes his head though, shrugging again. "I don't think we will be," he replies finally, and you just nod, smiling sympathetically. "I just never thought he would...you know?"

You nod. You do know. Although you _know_. 100% certain kind of know. It makes your chest swell and ache, all at the same time, because you know that you broke her trust when you broke up with her out of nowhere and fed her some line about the girl in the library.

Whom, since then, you hadn't even seen again.

"He sucks," you say finally, a conclusive tone to your voice. "You don't deserve to be cheated on."

"Maybe I did," he says, and you want to slap him across the face for even thinking it. This caring about Kurt thing – this _genuinely_ caring about Kurt thing - is weird. "I was really busy. I ignored him a lot when I started working."

"I don't care if threw your cellphone into the sea and then rocketed to the moon with Elton John, you didn't deserve it."

When he chuckles and closes the magazine, you take it as a success. You never really knew that you and Kurt could have this kind of thing. Sure, you plotted against Sebastian with him, but then you were just really enjoying the idea of taking the meerkat down. There was no reward coming from this conversation, and yet you wanted it to continue. You wanted to just sit here and talk.

You hadn't really made friends in college. Your roommate rarely actually stayed in your room, and even when she was there, she would introduce you to the guy she had with her and then draw the curtain between your beds. The guys on the cheer team were nice, although you never really clicked with any of them, either. And you always preferred to throw your earphones in while studying, so anyone that tried to talk to you then wouldn't have had much success. You went to a few parties, but even they didn't feel right. Work kicked your ass, too.

Basically, friendship never came easy, even after knowing the kids in glee for years. There was Quinn and Brittany, and then that weird day when Berry made it her mission to befriend you and have her face hanging from your locker door.

You kinda wish you'd taken more time, or matured enough to realise that it was okay to actually care. Brittany had taught you that, Quinn had stomped that message into you over and over since she pushed out her child, and they had all given it a try when you were outed and Finn decided they should all sing to you to make you feel better. They all cared, a little too much for your comfort sometimes, but you never really had any interest in caring back. You had a weird love for them all, because they all had a weird love for you, but that was as far as it went.

"You can't really talk," Kurt says after a while of watching the TV in silence. "Didn't you date and cheat on, like, everyone?"

You laugh then, your eyes still on the screen also. "That's different."

You expect a reply, but nothing comes, so you glance to your right and see that he is still focused on the TV, smirking a little. You smile even more at that.

"It _is_ different," he agrees finally, and you're glad he understands what you mean.

You always wished, for years during high school, that you could have talked to Kurt. When Brittany turned you down and you were a little lonely gay fish in the sea of Lima, Ohio, you wished that you could have grabbed a hold of his little gay fin and swam around together. That he could have shown you how to not be so terrified of everyone finding out, to not be embarrassed, to not be so angry at the world because you felt like nobody understood. You just wanted to talk to him. Even if it was only to say 'Kurt, I'm gay'. You never did, but you would sometimes see him at his locker and build yourself up to it, only to pass him completely and head to your class with your head down.

You admired him, even if him having his gay literally on full show 24/7 made your closeted self a little uncomfortable.

Maybe more jealous than uncomfortable.

"You would have never cheated on her, would you?" he asks, his tone sounding much less of a question and more a statement. He turns to you then, just as you turn to him, and smiles sadly.

You shake your head. "No," you say, a certainty and sincerity to your tone that you're pretty sure he's never heard. He doesn't look surprised, though. He just keeps that sad little smile on his face, giving you his full focus. "Never."

He nods, turning back to the television screen and sighing dramatically. "Wanna be my boyfriend?"

You're both howling with laughter when your cellphone rings on the coffee table. You lean forwards, seeing a picture of Sugar on the screen, and pick it up. "I don't think I'm packing what you require, Hummel," you reply finally, raising a brow at him before sliding your thumb across the screen and accepting the call. "Hey, Sugartits."

"Good evening, Santanabanana."

You smile, leaning further into the couch. Kurt raises a brow, though after you mouth a quick 'Sugar' in reply, he nods and turns back to the TV.

"What's up? I can't actually recall the last time you called me."

You hear breath out a little laugh on the other end, although it doesn't last. "Things are wrong here. You need to come back and fix them."

You let out a laugh of your own, a brow raised in question. "What?"

"Things. Are. Wrong. Here," she goes on, saying each word loudly and slowly, as if you're dumb enough to warrant it. You're not sure if she's being serious, but you roll your eyes nonetheless. "You. Need. To. Come. Back. And. Fi-"

"Okay, I got it," you interrupt, your tone agitated enough to make Kurt glance over at you with wide eyes. "Look, whatever's going on there isn't my problem. It stopped being my problem when I graduated."

"Brittany didn't."

Fucking Sugar.

You know that she knew what to say to stop you from heading off on an almost endless rant and then ending the call. You can practically see that stupid, smug look on her face right now.

You also know that your silence is just feeding the beast, so you manage a reply.

"What the hell are you talking about?"

"Brittany. She's either been replaced by a robot replica of herself or she's just completely lost her mind," she goes on, and you wait for her to get to the point, more than ready to interrupt and tell her to find it. "I'm going to blame you. All of this started when you started being such an idiot."

"Sugar," you growl, closing your eyes. "Get to the point."

"She married Sam."

Your eyes are not closed any more. They are decidedly unclosed.

They are so wide that Kurt actually flinches away from you, his face both worried and confused at the same time. "She...she what?"

"I don't really know the details. She didn't tell me, and I think it's because she knows it was ridiculous, but she married Sam. In the locker room. A couple weeks ago."

"A couple _weeks_ ago?" you snap back, and although you know it's about to happen and you try to stop it, you resign yourself to the fact that you're about to blame her for all of this. You need to channel your anger somewhere. "Brittany _marries_ someone else, and you wait _two weeks_ to tell me, Sugar?"

"It was in a _locker room_, Santana," she bites back, her tone sounding much more composed than your own. "It's not like it was some big, official thing. Coach Beiste officiated. Apparently it was a pretty small affair. Sam's sweaty jockstrap was their witness."

You're not sure if you gag, but you're almost certain that you want to. Or maybe sob. Or just full on cry. Or punch something. Or all of those things, one after the other.

Kurt backs away a little more. His eyes are even wider when you find them, and you figure he must have heard what you said to Sugar about Brittany.

Brittany getting...married.

"This is fucking ridiculous," you seethe, shaking your head. "Why the hell did she think this was a good idea? When the fuck did they even...get, like..."

"Together?" Sugar offers, ending a sentence that you couldn't. "Only, like, a week before it happened. Santana, everything's wrong. She's not happy, and she wants to be, which is why she's doing all of this. I don't know how to make her happy. I gave her my dad's wad and even that didn't make her crack a smile."

You close your eyes again. "Learn to rephrase."

"I'm just saying! You broke her, and you need to come and fix it before things get worse."

The call ends not long after that. You yell at her a little, blame her for something that you know isn't her fault at all. She offers to take Sam 'out of the picture', and you almost sarcastically reply that you've never heard a more inviting offer in your life, but then you consider that her father is possibly part of the Mafia and you decide to tell her that it's okay.

Kurt stays silent when you end the call and throw your cellphone onto the couch beside you. You both stay silent, although you're just picturing Sam dressed in a tux and Brittany dressed in all white and it's making you want to vomit. You don't really understand how it happened. Or when. You were there a few weeks ago, for Grease, and she never mentioned anything about it. In fact, she was very much all for the two of you getting back together.

You wish, more than anything, that you hadn't been such an idiot and had just said yes. That you had done what you really wanted to do, thrown your arms around her neck and kissed her silly, not giving a crap about distance or smiling girls in libraries or boys with oversized lips.

Just you and Brittany.

You stand up and storm into the bathroom, running a shower, not really sure what you're planning to do whilst in there. The water's hot when it hits your body, hotter than you usually have it, and you just wash quickly. In the small amount of time that you take lathering the shampoo through your hair, you've already made the decision to go home earlier than you and Quinn had planned. You're not sure what you'll do when you get there either, but you can't stay here. You can't stay here and think up worst case scenarios, or just sit here wondering how or when or why.

You're not sure what's worse; not knowing and imagining, or seeing it for yourself.

You just know that you need to find out.

"I don't know!" you hear through the door once you've stepped out of the shower, wrapping your body in a towel. Kurt's voice is low, almost a whisper, and you know that it's intentional. You also can't hear anyone else reply, so you figure he's on the phone. "Married! That's what she said." Another pause. "I don't know, Quinn. But I feel like she's about to rip my face off, so please get home and talk to her. I don't want to try. It's like trying to calm a pitbull." Pause. "In the shower." Pause. "Okay, I will. Please hurry!"

He's composed and back to reading his magazine when you step out, as if he hasn't just called Quinn and isn't fearing for his life.

You just roll your eyes and close the curtain to change.

-CF-

It's ridiculous; the fact that Lima somehow feels different now that you know about Brittany and Sam. It used to feel awful anyway, because it was Lima, and it was Ohio, and you had no time for either of those things. But your mother was here, and your friends were here; and, most importantly, your Brittany was here.

Except she's not yours.

And this feels a lot less like home because of it.

"I'm still pissed at you," Quinn says simply as she pulls into your driveway, glancing at you sideways.

You just shrug, releasing your seatbelt. "I never asked you to come home with me."

"You also asked Rachel to stick her vegan casserole up my ass, so we're not taking your requests into consideration here."

You roll your eyes, not in the mood to talk, and open the door.

"Wait!" Quinn's voice comes again, and you sigh before leaning your head back into the car. "Please, S, don't do anything stupid..."

You raise a brow. "Like?"

"Cut off Sam's balls and hang them around your neck as a prize."

You glare at her, backing away and closing the door before leaning in through the window. "The whole point is to hide the evidence, Quinn. You hang them up in the trophy case of your secret, underground dungeon. Anywhere else would be silly."

"You frighten me."

You roll your eyes, laughing a little. "His balls will still be intact. I wanna talk to Brittany, not him."

She nods at that, smiling sadly. "Good luck. If you need me-"

"_You have my number_," you finish in a voice that you know is nothing like her own, but is much more fun to mock her with. "Later, Q," you say finally, stepping away from the car and waving her off.

You really wish you did have a plan. Maybe not to rip his balls off, but just something. Like, something to say to Brittany, or something to say to Sam. You can see yourself trying, but then you can see yourself just screaming and crying and being unable to really find a way of saying 'I know I broke it off with you but seeing you with someone else makes me feel like my heart is being shredded so please don't do that' without sounding like an ass.

Maybe that's unavoidable.

You had tried to find a way to be okay with this last night, while Quinn was on Kurt's laptop, trying to book two last minute tickets. You're actually really glad that she came with you, because she does have a weird calming effect on you that you can't really explain. Maybe it's just because she can take all of your shit, and you can yell at her for hours without her so much as flinching.

That was useful last night.

But you had tried to be rational, to make yourself not fly home to Lima to ask your ex girlfriend to not be happy with someone else, but then you remembered what Sugar had said. She wasn't happy. Things were wrong.

And they had gotten fucking married.

You know Brittany, and you know that she wouldn't have done that. She had her life planned out, you had both talked about it countless times. A wedding in her mid-twenties, babies in her late-twenties, a big house somewhere sunny where her kids could play safely and grow up with other kids around them. Somewhere happy.

She also wanted a yellow house.  
And she also wanted all of those things with you.

Maybe that's what's making you feel so at odds with this whole thing; that it's not you that she married in the locker room of McKinley High. Because, really, if she had asked you to do that, you would have said yes in a heartbeat. Sweaty boy smell be damned.

"Santana?" your mom calls, peering through the door of the sitting room. "You're not supposed to be back for another..." she checks her watch, as if it can actually tell her days and not hours. You never understood that. "Two days."

"Yeah," you reply, already heading for the stairs. "I've got some stuff I need to do."

She doesn't say anything after that.

You don't really blame her.

-CF-

If Lima felt different with this new development, McKinley feels alien.

Nothing has changed, physically, but it feels different. It felt a little different last time you came back, and the time before that, when you weren't really a student, just someone intruding on the day to day workings of the high school world. But this time it feels entirely different.

You walk around every corner expecting to see them together. You look for them, even though you hate yourself for it, in every hallway that you walk through. You're heading for the choir room, because you know that she'll be there. School ended a few minutes ago, and you know that there's a glee meeting immediately after on a Wednesday. You also know that it means he'll be there too.

Your heart is beating really, really fast.

"Sandbags."

You really don't need this right now.

You stop, closing your eyes and taking a breath. You're not a student here any more, but you're still sure that punching Sue Sylvester in the face could only lead to bad things. Plus, the woman seems to have the law firmly on her side, so you just close your fists tightly and stay where you are; your back to her and your eyes opening to face the empty hallway before you.

"You just can't stay away," she goes on, getting closer. She's a lot less scary when she can't make you run laps for one wrong word. "What's brought you back this time? Could it be the glee club's _incredible_ loss at sectionals? Finn Hudson's rapid and disturbing morph into everything that was Mr William Schuester? Or, could it possibly be the fact that your delightfully simple ex-girlfriend has found herself a trout in the sea of fish left behind in your absence?"

Punching her might not be too bad.

No jail time, at least.

Plus, you think Figgins would give you some sort of award.

Instead, you somehow manage to turn around, arms still at your sides. You just stare at her. Her smug face, her hands clasped behind her back, her purple tracksuit top with matching purple tracksuit bottoms. You find yourself closing your eyes, a small breath escaping in what sounds a little bit like a bitter laugh, before you find her eyes, a little less sure than they were a moment before.  
"You're an ass," you say simply, your voice calmer than you had expected.

Her face falls, though it's only for a fraction of a second, before she nods. "You've grown up," she says simply, moving past you. As if it was some sort of test. "It's a good thing really, because that girl of yours is going the other way. So, before I have to throw her off my squad for her record-breaking bad grades, please talk some sense into her."

You just watch her, a confused look on your face, not really sure what just happened.

Then she stops again, turning on her heel. "And for a girl that used to add at least fifty percent of the cheer to the cheerios, she has been decidedly less cheery. Just an observation."

You really wish she would give all of the cryptic shit a break and tell you straight what it is that she wants you to do, but instead she just nods once again before turning and walking away.

You steel yourself once more, your heartbeat a little less erratic now, and keep walking towards the choir room. It's a lot closer, just around the corner, in fact, and you wait outside the door for a moment once your reach it. You can hear Finn inside, though you can't really make out his words. You just hear him say something, then someone says something in reply, and then they all laugh.

You find yourself smiling when you recognise Brittany's voice, even through the door.

But then you remember and your throat closes up and you feel all hot and nervous again.

So you just do it. You grab the handle, twist it, and push the door open.

You really hadn't thought this through.

Everyone's eyes land on you. You find her instantly, as you always have, and her eyes are big and blue and wide. She's shocked, that much is obvious, and you watch her as she subtly moves away from Sam, whose arm very, very slowly moves from around the back of her chair.

You just keep staring at them, even after Finn clears his throat and everyone else looks between you and where your eyes lie, each uncomfortable in their own way.

Tina just rolls her eyes.

Your eyes move around the room a little. Artie is looking down awkwardly, Joe is looking at you with an oblivious smile on his face, and Marley is offering you a sad, sympathetic smile that almost actually makes you feel a little better. Comforted, at least, even if being pitied by her is kinda sad.

"Santana," Finn says dumbly, not continuing with anything else.

Your eyes find her again as she slowly stands up, edging away from the chair. "San..." she begins through a breath, and you can tell that she knows that you know. You can tell because she can read you like a book, and she knows that you would have never, ever just walked into a room and stood there like an idiot if there wasn't a reason. You always had a next move, a plan, _something_. She knows that you're lost, and unsure, and hurt, and so she approaches you slowly. She steps down between Blaine and Unique's chairs, taking slow steps towards you. "Santana, what are you doing?" she adds, starting to lift her arm so that it's outstretched towards you, even if she isn't close enough yet.

You back away, lifting your own arm to stop her. She does stop, about three steps away from you, and looks just as lost as you feel. You don't want her to feel lost. She looks tired, like her sadness is somehow showing in her eyes alongside the shock at you being here. She looks worn down.

Your eyes drop, and you know why, and you know what they're looking for. They do it before your brain even really thinks it through, and you really wish that they hadn't, because your brain takes about two seconds to register that there is definitely a wedding ring on her ring finger.

The sound you make sounds like a groan to your ears, or a sob. Maybe both. You just make a sound that you don't really intend to, still looking at the ring, until she seems to notice and grabs that hand with her other one, hiding it away. "Oh my god," you choke out, shaking your head. "You..."

She shakes her head back. "Santana, just let me explain."

"You have a fucking ring on your finger," you say, your voice a little louder. You see people behind her flinch, and you know it's because you never yelled at Brittany, and you never swore at her like that. You've gotten angry at her, but you'd always managed to keep it together, because you knew that she didn't react well to people yelling. She would just close up. She doesn't this time, though, and you know that it's because she knows this is important. "Were you planning on telling me, or was this going to be a nice 'welcome home!' surprise?"

"Don't," she says firmly, and again the people behind you look surprised. You really wish they weren't here, it feels way too personal to have everyone gawking in on.

It's when that thought crosses your mind that you glance behind her at everyone else, and it's then that you catch his eye. He's watching you both, and his posture looks either ready to jump up and defend her or ready to jump up and fend you off. Either way, it pisses you off even more, and you walk straight past her and in his direction. "What the _fuck_, Trouty?!" you yell as you get closer, stopping just in front of Blaine and Unique who both cower beneath you.

"Santana, you don't understand-"

"Understand what? That you married her the second I fucking left? I thought you were her friend, Sam. Hell, I thought you were _my_ friend."

"I am your friend."

"You have a really special way of showing it."

"I am your friend, Santana. And you're supposed to be her friend. This isn't being a friend."

You pause, taking a long breath, because everything within you is itching to climb over and punch him right in the face. You grip the hem of your shirt in balled fists. "Don't tell me what it means to be her friend, Sam."

"Things are _different _now," he goes on, and you really wish he knew when to not, because you feel your blood boiling higher with every word. "We're not just kids playing around, and you're not best friends that are having sex on the side any more. You can't get jealous when she falls for someone else."  
"Falls for?" you scoff, spinning and glaring at her. She doesn't look down like anyone else would have, she just clenches her jaw and keeps her blue eyes on yours, red and watery. "You fell for him, Britt? You fell for Sammy Evans, the guy that you've known for years and never once taken an interest in. The guy that I dated, once upon a time, and that you _hated_ for that."

"I didn't hate him..." she replies feebly, though her voice is low and it trembles a little.

That puts a damper on your temper.

Only a little bit.

You turn back to him, and he's just staring right back at you, his posture still showing that he's definitely expecting you to jump over the first row of chairs and attack him.

"She's not yours any more," he says then, and your temper is instantly flaring again. "You let her go. You can't be angry if I'm making her happy."

"Is she happy?" you snap back, pointing back at her. "Have you actually, once, stopped to ask her how _she_ feels? Or did you do what you enjoy doing and decide that she_ was _going to be your girlfriend, and she _was_ going to fall for you, and she _was_ going to say yes when you got down on one knee after about a day of being together and fed her a load of dumbass reasons as to why she should _marry_ you?"

He swallows hard, glancing behind you and over at Brittany. The hand that you were pointing with lowers as you turn too, seeing her eyes on the ground, her face damp.

"The thought of her being happy with someone else..." you trail off, still watching her. She lifts her head when she hears you pause, and she sniffles, her eyes on yours again. "_Kills_ me," you finish, and her head cocks a little left, her features scrunching up as more tears gather in her eyes. "But if she was happy, and if she...moved on, from me, I could deal with that. It would hurt, but I know I could. And you," you add, turning back to Sam, "you're one of the best guys I know. But it's been weeks, Sam. You married her in a fucking locker room. I'm supposed to think that this is serious?"

"I am serious," Sam says defiantly.

"Just like you were serious about Quinn and Mercedes?" you hit back, and that makes his eyes drop from your own.

All of this is fucked up.

"Finn," you hear Brittany say from behind you, her voice low. You can tell she's speaking through tears. "Can we have a moment?"

There's a pause before he replies. "Yeah. Y-yeah, of course," he stutters, and you hear him moving behind you. You close your eyes then, your head falling back until you're facing the ceiling, and you hear the people around you leaving.

It only takes a few seconds until the movement and the muttering disappear completely.

"Sam," you hear Brittany say, and it makes you clench your eyes shut even tighter. "I want to talk to Santana."

"Britt..."

You don't think you could clench them any tighter.

"Please," she says, and it takes a moment until he gets up.

You hear him moving around you, and then you hear his footsteps pause as you lower your head again, opening your eyes to stare at the pattern on the wall at the back of the choir room. "I'll be outside if you need me," he says, almost in a whisper.

"I won't."

And then he's gone.

Neither of you speak straight away, and you just stay in place, staring a hole into the wall. You wish you had a way of starting this off, or that you really knew what you wanted to say at all.

You hear her moving, although you don't turn to look. She keeps moving until you can see her out of the corner of your eye. She takes one of the seats at the front, watching you, until you turn your head and allow your eyes to meet hers.

You stay silent. You don't say anything, she doesn't say anything. Her hands are together on her lap, tugging and pulling at one another nervously, and her eyes are more red than white. You look at her, for the first time in weeks, and you can't help it when a small smile crawls onto your face.

She doesn't even look shocked when she sees it, she just smiles back.

"I'm sorry," she finally offers after you smile at one another for a few seconds more.

You clear your throat, taking your eyes off her own to take a few steps, sitting yourself on a seat one away from hers. "For what?"

She's still watching you when your eyes lift and meet hers, but then she shrugs and looks ahead at the now closed door. "You don't need to ask that."

You nod, looking forward also. "Do you want to tell me why you did it?" you reply, and your tone is more snappy than you intended. You don't apologise, though. She'll understand.

"Sam told me about the Mayans."

You close your eyes, biting your lip to stop from doing anything else, and lean your elbows against your knees.

"He talked about how the world was supposed to be ending, and he said that we should do what we wanted to do before it did. He wanted to get married."

You nod, looking down at the ground. "And you?"

You see her shrug out of the corner of your eye, her hands still fiddling. "I wanted to be happy."

"So you just went along with it?" you ask, tilting your head sideways and looking up at her.

She looks back at you. She looks embarrassed, and sad, and sorry. You want to reach out and wipe the tears from her face, hold her and tell her that it's okay, but you don't. It's not your place any more. "I guess," she nods, looking down at her hands. "He's a really nice guy, and he makes me smile."

"Don't feed me that, Britt," you say simply, and you kinda hate it when she closes her eyes tightly, but you know that she knows that it's bullshit too.

That's what you don't understand about this whole thing in the first place.

"Why are you doing this again?" you ask, and she doesn't move or show any intention to reply. "You grew up, Britt. You're not this person any more."

"Not to you," she replies, shrugging as she lifts her head again. She looks ahead before turning back to you. "They know me as one thing. I love them, Santana, and they're my friends, but none of them take me seriously."

You shake your head, sighing heavily. "And you think they're going to take you seriously now?"

"No," she bites back. "But I'm stuck here, Santana. I'm here for the rest of the year. And, from what I've seen so far, probably the year after that too. The only person that ever actually believed that I could do something with my life has gone, and I failed you anyway. All year you talked about us, about life after high school; college and New York and dancing and working part time jobs to pay the bills. All year. And I knew that I wasn't going to be able to go with you," she chokes out, and you feel your arm flinch to grab her, hold her, but you manage to stop yourself. She's crying again. _Really_ crying. And when a tear falls onto the ground below you, you realise that you are too. "You had all of this belief in me, and nobody had done that before. I was always just the girl that would never graduate; that would be a super senior, and then a super super senior. Do you know how much easier it would have been if you just knew? If you didn't...expect things from me."

"Brittany, I didn't-"

"You _did_," she sobs, nodding defiantly. "You did. It's one of the reasons I loved you so much. But it's easier when people expect me to fail, Santana. It's easier to be what they expect, and to go along with all of this stuff. Because when you try to be something else and you_ fail_, it feels so much worse."

You sigh, closing your eyes and dropping your head again. "You can't resign yourself to being nothing because you're too scared to try."

"Nobody expects anything any more," she shrugs, lifting her hand to wipe her eyes quickly. "My parents decided that I was going nowhere when I was five and my teacher took them aside to tell them that I couldn't keep up with the other kids. You saw Mr Schue's face when Artie told him that I was on the Brainiacs. You left. There's nobody that expects me to do better, so there's nobody to disappoint."

"What about yourself?" you reply quickly, sitting up completely and turning in your chair to face her. "It's not about me, or your parents, or your teachers. Britt, you can't just act like this because you want people to think you're not capable of anything. It's just..."

You manage to stop yourself before you say the word, although you don't really think it matters. She knew what you were going to say by the way you stopped.

"It's just what?" she replies, a weird hardness to her voice that you didn't expect.

You shake your head, sighing. "Nothing."

"It's just what? Say it."

You look at her, confused, but she is just staring right back. "I wasn't going to-"

"You were," you pushes on, swallowing hard. "Say it."

"Why do you want me to say it so much?"

"Because I need a reason not to miss you _constantly_," she manages through a breath, though it comes out strained and shaky. "Please say it."

"Brittany-"

"Stupid," she finishes for you. "It's just stupid, right? It's just _stupid_ that I'm scared, and it's just _stupid_ that I want to find someone that will make me as happy as you did, and it's just _stupid_ that I sit in every classroom for every class, and I listen to every word that the teacher says, and I write down more than anyone else around me, and I don't remember a word of it. I can't make sense of my notes, because I don't understand. I listen, Santana. I_ try_. I keep trying, but I _can't_. It's just stupid."

You don't stop yourself this time. You're off your chair, kneeling before her, your hands on her cheeks as she tries to drop her head into her own hands. She's crying again, although this time she's making the noises and you hate it. You feel your heart break with every one. "Brittany," you manage through your own tears, sniffling to try to clear your face a little "B, don't. Look at me," you try again, and she steadies herself for a moment before allowing you lift her head, her face now visible. She hasn't stopped crying though, and the look on her face breaks your heart even more. "You're not stupid," you begin, those words that you've said to her a thousand times over the years ringing even truer than ever. "You are so, _so_ far from stupid, okay? You think sitting in a classroom and learning equations makes you smart? You don't need a grade to tell you that you're good enough to get out of this place."

She sniffles, calming slightly, and you lift your thumbs to wipe under her swollen eyes.

"This," you say, lifting your right hand to lay it against the side of her face, against her temple, and she lets her head fall into your hand a little. "This works better than anyone's I've ever met. You think differently, and you see the world differently, and it's _beautiful_, Brittany. It's not stupid. So maybe you're not book smart, but that's not the only kind of smart there is. You're creative, and you're imaginative, and you're obsessed with animals." She smiles, closing her eyes for a moment, and it makes you smile too. "You're so much more than letters on a report card."

She closes her eyes tighter for a moment, opening them and finding yours, her smile slowly fading. "I can't graduate if I don't know this stuff. I'm still gonna be stuck here for another year."

You nod, looking down for a moment, thinking your words through. You know what you want to say, but you also know that you can't make this decision for her. Saying 'fuck them all and run away with me' is what you really want to do, but you know you can't, so you take a breath before lifting your eyes again. "This needs to be about _you_," you begin, nodding once to make sure you're getting through to her. Her eyes stay locked on your own so you continue. "Who do you want to graduate for? Is it you?"

She takes a moment, thinking it through, before shaking her head. "I don't know..."

"This is your life, B," you add, shrugging once. "Not your mom's, or your dad's, or Sam's, or mine. If being here, repeating your senior year so that you can graduate makes you happy, then do it. If marrying Sam Evans makes you happy, then do it. If dropping out of school and finding something else to do makes you happy, then do it." She just keeps looking at you, straight into your eyes, as if they hold some sort of answer. "If you want to prove people wrong, Britt, you have to take the first step."

She looks down, nodding a little. "I don't really know what I want to do."

"Then think about it," you reply simply, and you smile when she looks up, trying to make her see that it really is that simple. "You always tell me to think about my dream, and to chase it, but you need to do that too."

You move both of your hands, using your fingers to wipe below her eyes. She's stopped crying, though her eyes are still red and puffy, and her chin still quivers every now and then. You just smile when it does, poking it softly until she smiles too.

"You know," you go on, leaning back a little and placing your hands on her knees. "All this time I've been thinking about my dream, and I've been trying to find it. I keep thinking it's New York, but then it's just a random city, and then it's singing, and then it's acting, and then it's just being some kick ass lawyer and singing in jazz clubs on the weekends. I still don't know. But, every time I try to think up my perfect future, the only consistent thing is that you're there."

Her eyes widen momentarily, her breath hitches, and one of her hands raise to take your own as they rest on her thigh.

"But this," you go on, "right now, this needs to be your choice."

She nods, looking down at your hands as she plays with your fingers softly. "I can't just drop out of school."

You shrug. "You can. If that's what you want, anyway." She looks up at you for a moment before breathing out a laugh, as if you said something ridiculous, and focuses on your hands again. "I dropped out of college," you say simply, and you kinda forget that you haven't told her that, because her eyes are wide when they find yours and her hand stops its movement.

"What happened?"

"I thought about it. It was making me miserable, and I was studying stuff that I didn't actually want to do," you smile at her when she studies your face, waiting for you to pull the 'just kidding!' card. "Maybe it was a dumb move, I don't know. But I can always go back to college years from now, if things go badly. I'm just sick of closing myself off from the world. I did that here, and moving to Louisville to basically rinse and repeat was only going to kill any kind of drive I had left."

She nods, a smile smile pulling at the corners of her lips. "What are you going to do now?" she asks, and her voice is small and timid, and you know that there is more to the question.

It isn't just 'what are _you _doing?' it's 'what would _we _be doing?'. She's testing the waters. _If _she dropped out, _if_ she followed you, what would you do?

"I'm thinking I might crash at Kurt and Rachel's for a while," you shrug, trying to sound more assured than you feel. You know they'll have you, Rachel had already offered (and then proceeded to plan the layout of the entire apartment around you), but the thought of just leaving without any sort of security scares you. School is security, having _something_ moving you forward is security. Looking for your own something is terrifying. "Kurt likes to frequent some of the little artsy bars around NYADA, and apparently the owner of one of them has a huge thing for little white gay boys from Ohio, so he said the guy would give me a gig for sure. After that, I don't know. Maybe just a crappy part time job while I try to get things figured out."

She grabs your hand with both of hers now, tracing your skin with her thumbs. She squeezes once as her smile grows even bigger. "What about Mercedes? Did you send her the sample?"

"I did," you smile back, feeling her excitement bubbling. It's infectious when she gets like this, even if you hadn't seen it for a while. She used to get like this when you would talk about your future together. "She said she wants to wait to give it to them. She's new, and she doesn't want to be asking for favours yet. But she said that she thinks I'm good enough, so that was kind of awesome..."

She raises a brow at you, still grinning. "Kind of awesome?" she laughs, tugging at your hand. "You talked about it for weeks when she said your voices 'sorta go together' during duets week."

You bow your head, feeling your cheeks grow hot. You kind of idolise Mercedes, and you don't think she knows that. You really don't ever want her to. You rarely respected people to the extent that you respect her, and you're not really sure why you do. Sure, her voice is insane and when she sang during sophomore year, when your love for music was still sitting safely next to your sexuality in the closet, you felt even more driven to follow that hidden dream you had. But there was more to her than that. You were both similar in so many ways, but also unlike each other in enough ways to mean you could be her friend without wanting to slap her every five minutes.

So, yeah, Mercedes Jones was definitely someone whose approval meant a lot to you.

So what.

"Whatever," you say with a smile, lifting your eyes back to hers.

"What if something happens with that?" she goes on, a more serious expression on her face now. "Would you move to L.A instead?"

You shrug. "Maybe. It's not like I can't move around. I'm only nineteen, and my mom gave me that money to use, so why not?"

She's just watching you, a curious look on her face. You can see a very, very faint smile, though her eyes are more serious. Like she's admiring you.

And, if there's one person whose approval means more to you than Mercedes Jones, it's Brittany.

So you just wait, embarrassed by the way she's looking at you, not used to it after weeks of being apart. You remember her looking at you like this every time you sang. Every time she realised she was in love with you, and every time she was proud of you, and every time you did something that she didn't expect.

You know the look perfectly, because you had that same one every time she danced. Or every time she said something profound out of nowhere, something that nobody else would have ever thought of. And every time she showed you how impossibly big her heart was.

"You're so brave," she smiles finally, her eyes still fixed on your own. "I'm proud of you."

"Whether it's brave or stupid is debatable," you smile, shrugging again. "But I just want to start living my life." You pause, watching as Brittany smiles back at you, amusement dancing in her eyes. Your nose scrunches up and your lips purse. "That sounded like something Berry would say."

"Maybe if you sang it."

"God," you breathe out through a laugh, "living with her is going to be a whole new variety of fresh hell."

Brittany rolls her eyes, tugging at your hand again. "You're gonna love it. Even if you pretend you don't, and you pretend to hate every second of it, you love them. And they love you. I don't think you can see that either, a lot of the time."

Your lips falls into a smaller, more sincere smile. It's warm, and you feel your own eyes soften as you just watch her, smiling back at you knowingly. "You really do have me all figured out."

She shrugs. "Sometimes. Maybe a little."

"Maybe a lot," you grin then, lifting her right hand with your left and bringing it to your lips without thinking. You place a soft, chaste kiss on the back of her hand, tracing over the spot with your thumb afterwards. She's just watching you when you look back up. Her expression is like a cross between a thousand different emotions; happiness, surprise, guilt, sadness, hopefulness, worry. You can see it all there, and you wish you could pull all of them out one by one and help her figure them out, but you know that this is her time. You've laid the possibilities out, and now it's her turn to choose what path she follows. "I don't know what I was doing, letting you go..." you say, surprising yourself.

She looks down then, breathing out a coy laugh, her cheeks growing a little redder. You can see that she's sad to be reminded, but glad that you've finally realised the mistake that you made.

She always stood aside and let you make your mistakes. She never told you that you were about to make one, or told you that you were wrong; she knew you better than that. You're stubborn, and you're set in your ways; and when someone tells you one thing, you usually want to do the opposite. She knows that. She's always known that. She knew that so much that she let you break her heart every day, she stood aside and let you have the space that she knew you didn't really need, and she let you have your doubts.

She's fluent in Santana, and you don't really understand how. Even you're not fluent in Santana yet.

She's one of the smartest people you've ever met, when it comes to reading people and emotions and knowing what to do. She's the person you turn to when you're having problems because she always knows what to say, and she always knows how to help. And, in that way that you still don't understand, she always knows how the situation is making you feel, even if you try to hide it.

She's your person.

"Everything happens for a reason," she says eventually, shrugging before lifting her eyes back to your own. "Sometimes things need to go a little wrong before they can be a lot right again. Especially with you."

You laugh, shaking your head. "I'm an ass."

"Only sometimes," she grins back.

You take that, because you know it's totally true, and push yourself up onto your feet. She keeps hold of your hand until the very last moment, her fingers gripping onto your index finger until you step back and her hand drops to her lap. "So," you begin, knowing that you have to but not wanting to at all. "What does this mean? I mean, there's Sam..."

She nods, looking down at her lap. "There's Sam..."

"Yeah."

She sighs, getting to her feet also. "I don't want to hurt him."

You know that it's inappropriate when you chuckle, and you know that it comes out a little better, but you can't help yourself. "This sounds incredibly familiar," you say with a raised brow.

"That one was your fault too," she replies sharply, raising both of her brows to challenge your one.

She has a point.

You nod, accepting her retort as truth, and hold your right hand with your left in front of your body. Nervous habit. "I guess this has to be your choice too," you say finally, looking down at the ground. The thought of never having her back has been plaguing you ever since you got the news. You knew that there was some sort of catch, and you knew that Brittany wouldn't have actually married someone else, but it hit you with the reality of the possibility in the future. What if she did meet somebody else? Somebody that didn't fuck up like it was their job and didn't still flinch sometimes when they kissed her in public and somebody saw them? You've always believed that you and Brittany were it, even when you were having your doubts. You still couldn't imagine your future with anyone else.

But that was you, not Brittany.

Maybe she's done with your shit. You really wouldn't blame her.

"It's never a choice," she shrugs, still standing a foot or two away from you. "For as long as you want me, I'll want you more than anybody and anything else. We just need to work on our timing. And, next time, you need to not run away from me when you get a little scared."

You laugh, nodding as you lift your eyes back to hers. "We are pretty bad at that."

"The worst."

"I'm sorry, by the way. For being too scared." She nods in response, smiling sadly. "I would never have cheated on you."

"I know that."

"I don't think you do," you shake your head, taking a step closer to her. "I tried to date other people, and I just couldn't do it. There was this one girl, we went out a couple times with friends, then she asked me on a date, just the two of us. When we were saying goodnight and she kissed me I freaked out..."

Brittany laughs, and it's not really what you had expected at all. "That sounds familiar too."

"Yeah, well," you roll your eyes, trying to hide your smirk. "She got mad and told me she was 'totally done with 'little straight girls wanting to experiment'."

Brittany's head flies back and she barks out a laugh. A real laugh. It surprises you a little, although you're quickly laughing along.

"It's not funny!" you chuckle, "I haven't been called a 'little straight girl' in, like, two years."

She's still shaking a little with laughter when she brings her eyes to yours again. "Did you see her again?"

You shake your head, still smiling back at her. "No. I don't think she liked me very much after that..." She laughs a little more, shaking her head and looking down at her feet. "All night I just kept comparing her to you. Like, when we went out to eat, as soon as she didn't order the spaghetti carbonara and Dr. Pepper I wanted to leave." You hear her breathe out a sigh, a smile forming on her lips as she glances back up at you. "I don't think there's another you for me."

You watch her expression as it changes and changes within the space of a second. You can't really read what she's thinking, but there's a smile in there, and a frown, and when she blinks her eyes stay closed for longer than usual, one long breath coming out as a shaky sigh.

You just watch her, a hint of a smile on your face.

There's not another her for you.

-CF-

You're so far beyond done with packing by the time you're loading up your car at home that you never want to see a suitcase again in your life.

You lean against the door, your breathing heavy after loading case after case as your mother and father stood to the side and lectured you about long trips and safe driving. You're only driving to the airport, and your father is driving the car home anyway, but you just let them go on and make noises of acknowledgement every now and then.

"Honey," your mother says, stepping forward and holding your cheeks with her hands. "Are you sure about this? It's a big move."

You roll your eyes. "Yes, mother. I'm sure."

"New York is a big place," your father offers then, standing on the curb and watching the two of you as your mother finally releases your face. "There are a lot of dangerous people. Make sure you never travel alone at night."

"_Dad._"

"Never," he affirms, lifting his brows as if to dare you to challenge his authority. "And it's not like Lima. There's going to be a lot of..._interest_ for you there."

"Lesbians, dad."

"And I want you to have all the..._fun_ you want."

"Sex, dad."

"But I want you to make sure that you don't go giving yourself away to just anyone. There are dangerous lesbians out there too, I'm sure."

Even your mother is looking at him strangely, but you both know that he's trying his best, so you take a few steps over to him and wrap your arms around his middle. "I'll be fine," you say into his chest as his arms wrap around your shoulders.

Your mother waits off at the side, moving in to hug you almost as soon as your peel yourself away from your father. "We love you, mija," she squeaks out, holding you tightly. "Call us as soon as you get there. And if I don't hear from you at least once a day, I will call you every hour until you pick up."

"And don't you go getting all 'big city girl' on us," your father joins in. "Be proud of your roots."

"You're being ridiculous," you groan, glaring at them both.

Your father hears the car approaching first, looking over your shoulder. It's when your mother looks too that you finally turn, seeing Brittany's mother's car pull up behind your own.

You haven't talked to Brittany since Wednesday. Maybe it is a little sudden to be moving now, it is only Friday, but you don't want to stay here. And Rachel emailed you a PDF of the new apartment layout along with a briefing of the 'rules' that she and Kurt had put into place on Wednesday night, so there really is no time like the present.

The passenger side door opens as Brittany climbs out, smiling at you as she moves around the car and walks towards you. Your parents don't say anything, and you can't take your eyes off her for long enough to turn around and see what their reaction is.

You know that they like Brittany, but you also know that they want you to 'live your life', and think that you shouldn't be so hung up on 'first loves'.

Your dad also thinks you can do better, and he's said so in pretty much every way besides just straight out saying the words.

You don't really know who would ever be good enough for the doctor that's still waiting for you to tell him that this whole gay thing is just a prank.

"Hi," Brittany smiles, finally stood before you.

"Hey."

"I wanted to see you before you left," she offers, keeping her eyes on yours despite being so obviously nervous. Her smile is soft and hesitant. "How are you feeling?"

"Like I've just been given a debriefing by the fun police and am about to dive head first into a sea of killer lesbians."

She gives you a funny look, though her lips are quickly lifting into a smile. "I've never heard New York described like that," she laughs, quirking a brow.

You shrug, grinning back. "I have a very specific brochure."

"I'm sure," she jokes, scrunching up her nose.

Your dad coughs behind you and you roll your eyes before turning to him. "We have to get going soon, Santana," he says, not unkindly but also not entirely warmly. You can tell that he wants you away from here, and away from Brittany, before you can decide that this is all a mistake and that you don't want to leave any more. "We have a flight to catch."

You turn back to Brittany, and she's looking over your shoulder at your parents. She smiles to them sadly, nodding curtly before finding your eyes again. She breathes out, long and unsteady, before shaking her head. "This is crazy," she laughs, though it doesn't sound happy at all. It sounds resigned.

"It is," you agree, trying to catch her eye again as she looks down at the pavement. "It feels a lot more final than just going away to college."

"Don't say that," she says quickly. It comes out in one hurried breath, and her eyes are back on yours, looking back and forth between your left and your right faster than you've ever seen them move. She's panicking.

You take her right hand with your left, squeezing it once. "Remember what I said?" you ask, and after a moment of watching you intently she nods. "Me leaving Lima doesn't mean me leaving you. You know where I'll be, Britt. You always will, I promise."

She chokes on a sob, her eyes on the ground again, her hand holding yours so tightly that you don't think you'll be able to ever let go.

"If you ever need a place to stay..." you joke, trying to lighten the mood. You mean it, but it's odd saying it. You and Brittany were never 'if you ever need a place to stay'. She was your home. She is your home.

You're not just her place to stay, and she isn't yours. She never will be.

You find your own eyes growing watery before you even realise. They sting a little too, so you blink rapidly, remembering the audience that you know you have. You groan, pulling her forward by her hand and wrapping your arms tightly around her neck. You hear her sob again as soon as she falls into your body, her fingernails digging into your shoulders desperately.

You hate this. You wish more than anything that she was coming with you.  
"I love you so much," you whisper, closing your eyes and feeling more tears fall as you do.

You feel her nod into your neck, her grip on you growing even tighter. "I love you more," she replies into your skin, not whispering at all, though it vibrates on your neck and sounds muffled because of it.

You want to reply with your usual 'not possible', but you don't. You just hold her tighter, wanting to remember this moment, this feeling. The way you fit together like a jigsaw puzzle. The way every curve of your body fits with hers, like you were always supposed to be like this. You'll miss the way her hair smells, the way she softly kisses your neck, even through her tears.

You hold tighter and try to memorise it, try to desperately memorise everything about this moment and everything about Brittany, because you know it will be gone soon, and you don't know how long it will be gone for.

Maybe forever.

You don't want to believe that. More than anything, you want to let her go now and then hit fast forward. To graduation, to the day when Brittany decides what she wants, you don't know. You just want to skip this part, the part that leaves you thinking, for the first time in years, that this might actually be it for the two of you.

"Come find me," you say as you both eventually pull away, reluctant and slow. You lay your forehead against hers, sniffling away some of your years. "Whenever you've figured things out and you know, just..." you close your eyes tightly, feeling your chin quiver.

She leans further into you, lifting her hands to your cheeks. "I'll always find you," she whispers, wiping at your cheeks with her thumbs as more tears now fall from your eyes. "I don't think I know how to lose you."

You breathe out a laugh, opening your eyes enough to watch her mouth form a watery smile.

"I broke up with Sam."

Your eyes instantly find hers when you hear it. She's still just watching you with that same calm smile. There are tears all over her face, and her eyes are red and puffy, but she looks beautiful. She looks much more composed than you do, and you can tell that she feels it. There's something in her eyes. Something that was missing the last time you saw her in the choir room. It looks like certainty, but still with a little sadness. It looks like hope.

"What?" you whisper, though not intentionally.

She smiles a little bigger. "It wasn't fair to be with him when I was just counting down the days until I could see you. It wasn't fair on him, or me." You nod, feeling her hands slip from your cheek to your neck. "I don't think there's another you for me, and I don't know if I love that or hate it."  
You smile back eventually, though it's small and hardly there at all. "I know what you mean."  
"I've been thinking a lot too," she goes on, and you smile a little wider. "I think I'm on my way to figuring things out. At least a little bit. But we don't have to have everything figured out now, right?"

"I'm moving to New York to sleep on the couch of the drag and his hag," you quip, raising a brow. "We definitely don't need to have everything figured out yet."

She laughs, nodding softly against your forehead. "Okay."

You part then, after a few more moments of just watching her and smiling. You want to kiss her, but you don't know if that's right, or if she would even want to. The thought of your mother and father seeing also plays on your mind for a moment, though it doesn't last and you quickly decide that you would do so in a heartbeat if you felt that Brittany would want to.

But you don't know now, because everything's different.

So you pull away, smiling sadly as you release her hand.

"Goodbye, Santana."

It feels like being kicked in the chest, and with a strangled breath you reply in kind.

You walk backwards, because you want to be watching her for as long as you can until you can't any more. You turn when your back hits your car, with one last smile in Brittany's direction, and you make your way to the passenger side door, deciding that you're definitely not ready to drive anywhere right now. Your eyes are still blurry with tears, and your heart is racing. You feel like throwing up and crying, and you're shaking, and you don't know why any of that is happening, because you will see her again.

You _will_.

She can't lose you.

And you know for sure that you can't lose her.

"Santana."

You turn as soon as she calls your name, like your body had been desperate for it, and she's racing towards you when you see her again. You don't even have your hand off the door handle when her lips land on yours, her hands in your hair, tugging and pulling you closer.

You wrap your arms around her waist, holding her tightly. You stumble a little from the surprise, though when you step forward she just moves with you, always in tune. You feel yourself whimper into her lips. You thought you couldn't have possibly missed this more, but now you know that you didn't have any idea just how much you did.

She moves her lips against yours, tugging your lower lip between hers, kissing you slowly but forcefully. Her lips still feel soft but they're steady against yours, as if she's trying to imprint it to memory too.

You kiss for a long time, neither paying any mind to who may be watching, before she slows down even further and places one last, soft kiss to your bottom lip.

She's breathing heavily when she pulls away, her eyes glazed even through the shine of her tears. "I love you," she breathes almost straight into your mouth.

"You've said that," you smile, deliriously happy. You hold her tighter regardless.

"More than I did then," she grins, nudging your nose with her own.

You shake your head, running your hands up and down her back, memorising. "I love you too."

"More than you did then?"

"More than I ever have," you nod, your smile replaced with a more sincere quirk of your lips. You want her to know. "And in a week, I'll love you more than I do now."  
"And in a year?"

"More."

"Ten years?"

"More."

"Fifty years?"

"With every single one of my wrinkles," you grin. "I'll even let you ride on my mobility scooter."

"I think we'll be able to afford one each," she smiles, brushing her forehead against yours.

You shrug. "I'd rather have you with me."

It means more than just that, and she knows too. You can tell by the way her smile becomes a little sadder, as if she's remembered why you're here in the first place, why this is happening.

She pulls away slowly, looking down at the ground as she steps away, and you straighten up before her.

"This time I'm actually going to let you go because your dad looks like he's going to have a heart attack."

You peer behind you, seeing your mother and father looking a little uncomfortable. Your dad tries to mask it by lifting his wrist and tapping his watch, but you roll your eyes, looking back at Brittany. You see her mom over her shoulder, smiling at you. You wave, she waves back, and your goodbyes are done.

You've always loved Brittany's mother, but you also know that you can't handle another goodbye. She knows that about you, though. You grew up practically living at her house.

"I'm gonna miss you," you say to Brittany.

She nods. "I'd be offended if you didn't."

You laugh, rolling your eyes and turning away again. You know that you have to leave, and you have to turn away, and you have to fly to New York and move in with Kurt and Rachel and start to actually_ live_. But that doesn't mean you have to not hate it.

So you turn away, before you over think it again. You open the passenger side door, turning back towards her again. She's stood, hands together at her front, fidgeting nervously.

"Bye, Britt-Britt."

She smiles.

"Bye San."

-CF-

You were right, living with Kurt and Rachel makes you want to walk up every flight of stairs in this building and jump from the highest one you can find.

Rachel sings. Not just sometimes, _all the time_. They don't even have walls, so when one sings, the other hears and then they start _harmonising_. Through curtains too, so you can't even see them, you can just hear them. Like a really badly produced version of The Voice, only gayer and much less tolerable.

It's been a month. A month of this.

The window being wide open and big enough to fling yourself from really isn't helping your urges.

"Berry! Queer Eye! It's seven o'clock in the morning!" you yell finally, having had enough of their 'throwback' performance of Defying Gravity. You heard them reminiscing over croissants and coffee, though you had gritted your teeth and managed to doze off again.

But then the _singing_.

"You know, Santana," Kurt calls through the curtain from the couch, "your constant need to reference my sexuality when you insult me just wreaks of internalised homophobia."

You groan, dragging yourself up from your bed. "I'm out, Hummel. I'm flying the rainbow flag." You pull back the curtain to your little bedroom area, stepping out and seeing them sat together on the couch. "It's not homophobia, it's I-wanna-sing-showtunes-at-inappropriate-times-in-the-morning-phobia. It brings me out in a rash." You point to Rachel. "You too."

"I'm not responsible for any kind of rash you're suffering from, I assure you," Rachel replies, and you just glare when they share light giggles.

You roll your eyes, heading for the kitchen. "You are a rash."

"That was bad. Even for you."

"I was never made to see this time of day by choice," you reply, turning back to them. "You woke me up, you suffer the consequences. Be quiet in the morning and I'll be a joy to live with."

"No you won't."

"No I won't," you agree, pulling out a bowl. "But I'll hate you less, and that can only mean good things."

"Cheerios are in the bottom cupboard," Kurt offers when he sees you looking through them all. "And you're already going to hate us less. We have plans, so we'll be gone all day."

You turn, brows raised. "All day? As in, it's a Saturday and I have the place to myself?"

He nods. "Entirely."

"All day?"

"We're not _that_ bad, Santana!" Rachel yells, looking offended.

You find yourself grinning back at her. "I like having time to myself," you say, a little calmer now. You know that she genuinely does get offended by your jokes sometimes, and you think it might be from years of your jokes not being jokes at all, so you feel bad when she gets that look. Kurt, not so much. You know that he can take it. And he's never one to pull any punches either.

She smiles a little, so you turn back to the counter and continue pouring your milk.

-CF-

Besides one phone call with the guy that you've been working for lately, the day goes by uneventfully. You're not working at the bar this weekend, which marks your first weekend off since you arrived, and the bar that you've been performing at is having a karaoke weekend.

Working here is different to working in Lima. It's still work, so on the days when you're serving drinks to guys that ogle you and wink in response to everything you say, you want to tell them all to suck it and quit. But everything's bigger, and it moves faster, and it feels more important. You feel like you're part of something here, like you're not just existing. It's almost perfect.

Almost.

You've brought home one girl since you moved here. Well, one woman.

Puck would have been proud.

She wasn't too old, but she was drinking at the bar when you were working, and after so many men had tried to make silent passes at you, a woman doing the same was more than welcome. She was much more subtle. She would just smile, but she'd take her drink from you slowly and lightly brush her fingers against yours. Then you got talking. Then she complimented your rack, using much classier vocabulary of course, and you kinda knew she was interested.

Especially by the way you kept catching her eye as you worked, and she would smirk.  
And then she winked.

You had told her when you finished, and it was only an hour or so away, so she waited.

By the time your shift was over she was pretty drunk. You were a little drunk too. She was wearing a business suit. She looked important and, more importantly, incredibly hot.

Or, maybe more importantly than that, like she was in this for exactly what you were.

You didn't want feelings, you just wanted sex. It had been way too long.

Turns out that a woman that looks experienced on the outside is more than experienced on the inside. She knew exactly what spots to hit, and when to hit them. You don't really remember kissing at all. It was just fast, and brilliant, and then you were coming.  
And coming.

And coming.

You held your own though. She actually looked a impressed, especially when you told her your age.

Impressed and a little shocked with herself.

Point is, Rachel and Kurt hadn't forgiven you for that for at least a week. You were still on bathroom duty to this day, although they had stopped bringing it up every time you complained about them bringing friends over, which you were thankful for.

But it had proven something to you; sex with Brittany wasn't just amazing because it was sex with a girl. Everything you felt with Brittany was because she was Brittany. That woman knew what she was doing, and she made you feel good, but it wasn't the same. Once it was over, you couldn't wait for her to leave. You had no desire to see her again.

It didn't make you feel special, just satisfied.

You miss feeling special.

You just miss Brittany.

_new york is surpsisingly quiet when the gays go out to play xx_

You hit send, after selecting Brittany's name, and place your cell back down beside you. There's always one person that you want to talk to on days like this, when you're alone with your thoughts. You miss just being bored with Brittany.

You phone buzzes so you pick it up.

_is it wet dream tomato yet? xx_

You laugh, tapping out your reply.

_not yet xx_

A reply comes sooner than you expected.

_it will be ;) xx_

You're not really sure what to make of that, so you just push your cell aside and slide further into the couch.

-CF-

_**Kurt**_

_still enjoying your own company?_

_**Santana**_

_Immensely. _

_**Kurt**_

_text us when it's okay for us to come back._

You frown, reading the text over. You didn't know that they were only staying out for you. It confuses you a little, but you're grateful.

_**Santana**_

_Will do :)_

_**Kurt**_

_WAS THAT A SMILEY FACE?!_

_**Santana**  
Nope, you're seeing things. It's the pink eye._

You don't get a reply.

-CF-

You're getting out of the shower when you hear the knock at the door.

You groan, ready to reel off a thousand reasons as to why Kurt and Rachel shouldn't be back yet. It's a little after four, and your day of alone time is definitely not over. You have more TV to watch, more peace and quiet to enjoy.

You wrap the towel around yourself, tucking it in against your chest.

They knock again.

"Okay! Jesus..." you shout, leaving the bathroom and walking with wet feet through the apartment. It's freezing. "You told me to text you when I was ready for you to come home. I was in the shower. I am nowhere near done enjoying my day away from the two of you, so please," you rant, finally pulling the door open, "go back to wherever the fuck you've been hiding all day and-"

Shit.

"Finished?"

Shit.

You're kinda frozen, just staring with your hand still on the door handle.

"The staring's a little creepy," she says, grinning. "Can I come in?"

"You..." you say, though you don't really say at all, it just falls from your mouth that is hanging wide open. "Wait, you..."

She nods, still smiling. "Progress."

"I'm sorry," you stutter, shaking your head. You open the door wider, then you freeze again, and all progress made is lost.

There are suitcases.

"Wait..."

You look back at her, and she's just smiling wider, a little nervous and a lot happy.

"Kurt and Rachel know," she begins, rocking back and forth excitedly. "I got a PDF and everything, although it basically just told me that all of my stuff needs to be where your stuff is. I also got a 'sex schedule', which was majorly creepy. Apparently you need to be reminded of it, so I'm guessing you breached the sex schedule recently. Rachel seemed really pissed."

You just blink. "That's why they..."

"That's why they disappeared today, yeah. My flight was delayed a little, and then I had to figure out how to get here on my own, which was super scary. I picked up some maps at the airport and then managed to catch a cab and Santana?" You lift your eyes from her suitcases and look back at her. "Why are you not kissing me yet?"

She doesn't have to ask twice. You don't even feel bad when all of the water from your body soaks her t-shirt, or when you wrap your arms around her neck and soak her hair. You just kiss for the longest time, smiling and laughing between them. You feel like you're going to wake up again to Rachel and Kurt singing a different show tune and that this will all be a dream. The most perfect of perfect dreams.

But she's here, and she's kissing you, and she has suitcases.

She's here.

"Wait," you breathe, pulling away enough to lean your forehead against hers. "You're here?"

She nods, grinning.

"Forever?"  
She shrugs. "I hope we're not staying _here _forever. But with you? I'm with you forever."

"School?"

You really wish you could form sentences that weren't one word long. Your mind is buzzing though, and your heart is pounding. Everything within you seems so excited, like every part of you had been waiting for this, for everything to really _start_.

"I left."

"You dropped out?" you ask, shocked and a little scared.

She nods, looking a little more nervous than before. "I talked to Miss Pillsbury. I told her everything, about school not working and stuff, and she listened." She smiles, holding you tighter around your waist. "We both worked out that I wasn't on course to graduate this year, even though my grades had gotten better. She told me about GEDs, and she said that they might be better. Y'know, if I do those when I feel ready."

You nod, smiling softly. You're glad that she's here, more than anything, but you wouldn't be glad if she'd only left because of you.

That fire in her eyes is back though. The fire that had been missing recently. The fire that you remember seeing when she was running for president, and when she was chosen to dance centre stage with Mike at sectionals. The nervous but excited fire.

"We looked it up, and there are a ton of dance schools here. I'm not saying I could teach right away, but if I went to some and impressed someone, maybe I could eventually. I could try some auditions too. I want to teach little kids. Maybe kids that have trouble getting the hang of it, like Becky did. And there are animal shelters here that are always looking for volunteers, so I could do that too. And she said that there are so many bars and clubs and diners here that there are bound to be jobs that people need me for, right?" she goes on, the nervous fire in her eyes growing. "I mean, I don't have it all figured out, but I feel like I could. Like I'm at the start of something."

You keep watching her, even as her eyes move while she talks. You watch her mouth, her eyes, her nose, her cheeks, her everything. You listen to her as she tells you about her plans. They're not idealistic, like they used to be. She's not talking about big houses and white picket fences. She's not talking about a future that isn't here yet, like she used to, she's talking about now. Like she can see a short-term future, and she's not skipping over that any more, too afraid to think of what it might be. She's here, and she's ready to move in with you and two of your best friends (even if you would never admit it). She's here to live with you.

Brittany is here to live with you.

In New York.

"I'm so proud of you," you smile, standing on your tiptoes and placing a soft kiss to her forehead.

Her cheeks are tinged pink when your eyes find them again, and she glances down bashfully. You just kiss her nose.

"You're in a towel," she says through a laugh. "And I'm still not actually in your apartment yet."

"Our apartment," you correct her, grinning as you step back.

She looks like you feel. Like you've just said the most beautiful thing she's ever heard. She takes the handles of her cases, one in each hand, and just looks at you again.

It's like you look at her now and you can see the future. You could before, but this part was missing. This unknown, post-high school part was always a grey area that you were too frightened to think about. And you know it will be hard. Although the four of you will be even more comfortable with the rent now with the addition of Brittany, it's still rent, and there are still bills to pay. Then there's getting Brittany set up, and the possibility that she may not take to being here, hundreds of miles away from home, in the way that you have. Maybe this won't work out; with you or with the city.

But right now, looking at her, you can see a future. You can feel a start bubbling deep within you, like a match that is just now catching fire.

She looks back at you and you can tell that she feels the same.

"Our apartment."


End file.
